Windows – Cleaning up a server’s C:\ drive. All known ways

disk-space-utilizationdiskmanagementwindows

I have a c:\ on a server that is filling up, most likely due to the accumulation of patches over the years.

I'm told by Microsoft PSS Support that it is unwise to simply delete the compressed uninstall directories within the \Windows directories. Considering that we have 100's of windows servers, this scattering of patches is consuming at significant amount of space on our SAN (these windows servers are in VMWare).

Can you tell me what I can do, besides the list below, to clean up space on the C:\ drive? I'm hoping that you may have more insight than the recommendation I received.

  1. Don’t set your Virtual Memory pagefile.sys on C drive.(System
    Properties\Performance
    settings\Advanced\change Virtual
    memory)

  2. Clear temp files (C:\windows\temp and
    C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Temp).

  3. Don’t set your temporary Internet files on C drive.(Internet
    Options\Browsing history settings\move
    folder)

  4. Move the Windows Search Service Database. If you have started
    Microsoft Search services, please move
    Windows.edb file to another drive.

    ( C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows
    )

  5. Compress folders to save disk space and use disk cleanup

  6. Use mount point to mount an additional drive.

  7. “Compln.exe” can only be used to clean Service Pack, such as (RTM and
    SP1). In your system Windows server
    2008 r2, it don’t contain any service
    pack. It cannot clean the patches in
    your system.

  8. ???? (not sure what this idea is) "Microsoft provide the built-in tool –
    disk cleanup .(You need to install a
    feature called "Desktop Experience" to
    get Disk Cleanup.) "

What other things can be done to clean up your server and free up space?

Lastly, it would be nice to get an idea of what drive size you use for c:\ for whatever version of Windows you use.

Best Answer

Lastly, it would be nice to get an idea of what drive size you use for c:\ for whatever version of Windows you use.

Server 2003: We use 15GB C: drives for these now. We used to use 10GB ones, but the patch-dirs ate us out of house and home. We're not spinning up many of these any more, but if we do, 15GB is it.

Server 2008 & 2008R2: Microsoft itself is saying that 30GB is the number you should be aiming at. Seeing as how they made the patch-dirs nigh undeleteable with these server versions, I'm not going to doubt them. Currently we make our C: drives 20GB, but that's because we made our VM templates before this guidance emerged. We need to change it. 40 is probably better once you factor in 3rd party installers that resolutely stash things on C: no matter what you tell them.

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